


TAZ Nano

by inkedinserendipity



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Literally everyone is here - Freeform, M/M, ficlets of all genres!, fluff! humor! angst! check it out folks we have literally everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12883548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkedinserendipity/pseuds/inkedinserendipity
Summary: A collection of ficlets from every day in November. Featuring: Taako pretending as hard as he can that he does not careone bitabout his beautiful magic boy, Merle Highchurch being the badass that he is, Lup raining absolute hell on some fucked-up liches, and copious amounts of that good good Taakitz, among other things.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> “But I find joy in whatever I do. At the end of the day…that’s all you’ve got.”

Merle realizes his daughter is calling his name at around the fourth time she says it. Mavis enters the room, holding a handful of letters.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” says Merle. “Didn’t mean to tune you out there.”

“Not a problem, Dad,” she says, and grins. “Not your fault your hearing’s going in your old age.” Then, before he has a chance to form a retort through his spluttering, she plunks the stack on his table. “Mail’s here!”

Merle sighs, lets his daughter’s cheek slide. In front of him rests the accumulation of every single correspondence sent to the Highchurch household since he, Mavis and Mookie left for another  _Xtreme Adventure!_  about two months back. 

“Pan above, we’re popular,” he grumbles, rifling through the stack. There are easily a hundred letters in his hands. “Here’s some fatherly advice: never save the world. Then you got a buncha fans to respond to.”

“Uncle Taako loves having fans,” Mavis points out mildly. Then her grin turns sly. “’Sides, you might have less to respond to if you picked up your Stone every once in a while.”

“It’s off silent now!” Merle protests, then sighs and ruffles his daughter’s hair affectionately. She leans into the touch for a moment, then plops herself down into the seat across from her father, folding her hands across the table. 

Half of the letters are from the Starblaster crew. Most are sent from before Lup had finally gotten tired of waiting for him to pick up his gods-damned Stone and torn a portal through space with her new fancy skull-and-crossbones powers to show him how to use his Stone herself. 

Merle flips through, glancing briefly over the senders. Magnus, Taako, Magnus and Taako, Barry and Lup, Davenport…the gang’s all here. The parchment crinkles under his fingers, the paper itself yellowed with age and corners curling from the long-dried damage of weathered storms.

“A couple of those are from your Captain,” Mavis observes, tone perfectly even.

“Yes they are,” Merle mumbles, sorting his letters by writer - that stack for Taako, that stack for Magnus, that one for Lup and for Barry, a couple from Kravitz, a quickly-growing pile from Davenport. 

“It’s curious, Dad,” she says, tapping the pile. “I wonder if he writes to everyone else that much.”

“Of course he does,” Merle scoffs, ignoring the smile trying its damnedest to worm onto his face. “He sends everyone postcards everywhere he goes. You know that, he’s started sendin’ ‘em to you and Mookie too.” 

“But a bunch of these ones have stamps from the same town,” Mavis points out, clever fingers plucking three letters from Davenport’s stack that bear the same postal code in the top corner. “And I know for a fact Uncle Taako only gets one letter per stop he makes, ‘cause he always complains about just getting to see one picture of the towns Davenport visits. Which means he’s writing you more than anyone else.”

“Young lady - that’s - !”

“Just pointing out facts, Dad!” she sing-songs, then stands and scampers away from his halfhearted glare. “Have fun with your letters! Make sure you call and say thank you to Davenport for sending you such  _faithful_ correspondence!”

Merle’s left in his study with an embarrassed flame in his cheeks and a fond grin finally manifesting on his face. He doesn’t even bother shutting the door; Mavis will be back in an hour or so to “proofread” his letters to Captain Davenport, citing her father’s atrocious grammar as reason to poke fun at his “blatant flirting, Dad, you’re being really  _super_ obvious.” 

He turns back to his letters with a rueful chuckle, keeps sorting the stack. Most of the senders he already knows. Lucretia’s letters he can identify on sight; there’s no mistaking her neat lettering. (At least she keeps her handwriting neat while writing letters. Merle’s not confident he could interpret the scrawl she uses for rapid notetaking or rough drafts of more personal stories.) There are another couple from Angus, dressed up in a fancy-boy stamp that probably came from some fancy-boy store at his fancy university, and a few from Artemis, who cites Merle’s kitchen as an excuse to visit whenever Merle returns home between trips.

The letters from unknown senders he stacks and reads first. The first one’s a bill payment, because even though he’s one of the saviors of this known universe and the unknown ones besides, he’s still got to pay bills. Bullshit, in his opinion, but if he’s gonna have to break the law it’s not gonna be for tax evasion, so he fills out the corresponding check - paper and pencil, old-fashioned, just the way he likes it - and sends it back. The second is a request for tutoring from one of the kids at Mavis’s school, the third fourth and fifth from parents who want to enroll their children in his  _Xtreme Adventures_ , and then he opens the sixth.

It starts off the way a lot of the crew’s letters start off.  _Dear Merle_ , these types of letters begin, or  _Dear Taako_ and  _Dear Magnus_ and  _Dear Lucretia_ and  _Dear Barry_ and  _Dear Lup_  and, for the lucky ones who catch Davenport on land,  _Dear Davenport_.

_Thank you for your fight during the Day of Story and Song_ , they say.  _I heard your story, and I heard your sacrifices_ , they say. Magnus’s letters thank him for the inspiration to protect and love their families; Lup’s talk about taking a stand, Lucretia’s about her unfathomable courage. Merle’s tend to continue with y _our words helped me speak my mind_ or _you helped me mend a bridge I thought permanently burned long ago_  variety. 

This letter goes off-script.

_Merle_ , it starts.

The obligatory:  _thank you for your fight_.  _You are an inspiration_.  _I hope you’re doing well_. Merle smiles as he reads it. Even though he’s read the same words some dozens of times and heard them in person even more frequently, it still touches him to know that he was able to help another person, that he was able to guide one more being toward peace.

Then it says:  _my father worked in the Goldcliff militia. He served under Captain Hurley - you know her, I think. He was her Lieutenant, and they were close, he told me._  It’s written in past tense. Merle’s smile falls.

_I don’t know if you and Captain Hurley keep much in contact._  They do, infrequently; she sends letters sometimes. Taako calls her often, though, since “at least she keeps her fuckin’ Stone off silent, old man.”  _Last month there was a siege on the bank. A situation you’re familiar with. No vines this time, though; just a good, old-fashioned heist, the suspect unhappy with the peace in Goldcliff and a gun in his hands, and hostages scattered throughout the building._

There’s a sort of wry humor in the letters. Before he consciously realizes what he’s doing Merle reaches for his pad of paper and pen; this letter needs a response. After so long around Taako and Magnus, Merle is well-versed at telling when humor disguises deep, old aches.

_My father was sent in to negotiate with the gunman. He was always the most diplomatic on Captain Hurley’s team. He talked the man down, and managed to release the hostages. He…he’d always taken hope from you, Merle. He loved hearing you in the Parley space. Called people he really didn’t like “sanctimonious bastards”, and however angry he was, he always laughed after he said it. Said he always wondered if John apologized after all._

He hadn’t. Merle didn’t think he needed to, in the end.

_He died that day, after everyone else went free. At the last moment, the gunman turned his gun on my father and tried to flee. Captain Hurley stopped him, of course. No one can outrun Captain Hurley._ A pause in the parchment, a slight tremble in the beginning of the next word.  _She didn’t kill the man, but Merle, it was a close-run thing._

_Captain Hurley awarded my father high honors. I don’t know if Captain Hurley told you, Merle, but the awards the militia give out…they’re different, now. I don’t think she did. I don’t think she’d mention it. But there’s a Negotiation award that they don’t call Peacemaking because that would be too blunt, and he won it._

_There’s nothing I can do, because he’s dead. But I thought you should know, Merle. Because of you, sixty people walked free from Goldcliff that day._

When the pen returns to paper, the handwriting is a little different - still the same author, but the lines look dissimilar, like the writer had taken a break and returned to writing.  _Actually, I asked Captain Hurley. There were fifty-seven people in that bank, Merle._

_Guess there’s something to Istus after all._

Merle’s hands are trembling around the parchment.  _I know you get a lot of letters like this._ No. He’s never gotten a letter quite like this one. _But thank you for keeping our world safe._

The letter ends.

Before he even thinks to dry his eyes, Merle picks up a pen and starts writing. He writes, and writes, and it’s different and yet not at all from the letters he sends his family: his words are unfailingly honest, and the sort of comfort he puts into his writing comes naturally. It’s second nature. He says  _I’m sorry_ , and  _thank you_ , and  _I am proud to have inspired such a selfless man._

He writes  _I understand,_ because he does. He understands, so well, what it is to die for the people you love.

He seals the envelope, and with it begins his send-back pile. 

Suddenly, he’s tired. Not exhausted, but…drained. His gaze drifts to the stack of letters from his family. He picks up another one, one from Magnus, the Raven’s Roost return address lettered in Magnus’s block script, and despite his tiredness he smiles at it fondly.

The letters can wait. Merle stands, stretches, and goes to find his children.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Taako loves his magic boy very much. Angus can never, ever know this. Except, that is, when he needs to hear it.

General rule of thumb: Taako despises crowds. Fuckin’ hates ‘em. They’re good and dandy when he’s lifted above, spotlight trained on his face and all eyes pinned to his, soaking up every flirtatious wink and every uproarious joke. But being in the middle of them and pressed against all these people shuffling to get on the train, stuffed tight with hundreds of bodies like blades of grass curled and crinkled together in a fist - ugh. No. Hard pass from Taako. Every accidental nudge from passerby and cheerful  _whoops, excuse me!_  makes him want to curl into his own jacket and fuckin’ expire. 

The smoke thick and heavy in the air doesn’t help either. Taako’s got one end of his shawl pinned around his mouth, sweeping from his shoulder up to where he’s pinned the delicate fabric against his ear with the feather earring Kravitz gave him. The shawl doesn’t filter much of the smoke, but by Istus it’s  _something_ , and Taako will take whatever he can get.

A few years after the Day of Story and Song, Merle doesn’t bother affecting disinterest - he’s failed enough wisdom saves under the influence of his own Zone of Truth that pretending to dislike Angus is an endeavor doomed to fail from the start. He doesn’t ruffle Angus’s hair, because splinters, but he does give the boy a hearty pat on the shoulder and a piece of fatherly advice that makes Angus’s face contort into a truly spectacular combination of hilarity and revulsion.

Behind them, Magnus hefts the last of Angus’s luggage onto the train. It’s an easy task for the hulk of a man, since Angus doesn’t take much on trips. (A bad habit left over from childhood, Taako guesses, though Angus is taking more with him to school now than the stuff he took with him to the Bureau. Which doesn’t say much, ‘cause Ango arrived on the moon with, like, a couple pairs of clothes, an iron, some books, a spare pair of lenses. Now he’s got an entire suitcase stuffed with trinkets and good-luck gifts and three folders full of letters from his family that’s he’s carefully preserved over the years, and gods damn it, Taako is  _proud_  of him.)

Taako watches in vague amusement as Magnus unzips Angus’s bags surreptitiously, shuffling Angus off toward Taako while Merle slips yet another bag of sweets into his luggage for Angus to find later. Gods, he loves these idiots, he really does, but they’re dumb as a bag of fuckin’ rocks. Who do they think they’re fooling - the  _world’s greatest detective_? Who’s he supposed to suspect is dropping scones in his bag, the fuckin’ Candlenights bunny?

“Well, this is about it, sir,” says Angus. One of the other kids’ bags falls and takes Merle down with a sound whack. Merle curses it out as Magnus replaces it hastily, looking fervently around himself. 

“Sure is, D’jango,” Taako says without straightening from his post lounging against a nearby column, because his wisdom modifier is enough at level fuckin’ sixteen that he can save against Zones of Truth, thanks very much. “You excited?”

“Very much so!” Angus says. He adjusts his spectacles a little nervously.

Magnus and Merle have scooted away from the luggage compartment, which is now more or less in shambles.  Merle’s patting Magnus’s shoulder as he wipes a tear from his scarred face. Overly sentimental shithouse. 

“And?” Taako prompts, when Angus fails to continue. 

“And…well, to tell you the truth, sir, I’m a little nervous.”

“You,” Taako says. “Nervous about school.”

“It’s very new to me,” Angus says quietly. “The school I went to when I was younger - ”

“ - was preppy as hell, yeah, I know,” says Taako. He’d have punched the headmaster in the face, because who the fuck lets a kid get harassed for four years while doing zilch except jackin’ off in his damn study, except Angus asked him to please not.

He and Lup went and intimidated the man anyway, in fine Twin Birds style. Angus doesn’t need to know that. 

“Exactly. And I…I’m nervous about, um, making friends.” He shuffles his feet. “That’s new to me too.”

“Hey, what the fuck,” Taako says. “Am I not your friend, bubbeleh?”

“You’re more like a very eccentric family member,” Angus says.

“What kind of family member? Cool uncle?”

“Father,” Angus says decisively, and Taako retches, which makes Angus laugh, which makes Taako very pleased with himself.

“Gross.”

“I love you too, Taako.”

The train whistle blows behind them, and Merle hollers something over the crowd that Taako waves off. “I should go,” says Angus. He shuffles his feet reluctantly.

“Horseshit, little man, we’re havin’ some one-on-one time. Worst comes to worst I get Krav to tear you a new one to wherever you need to be.”

“That’s, like, super-illegal, sir.”

“Sure, sure.” The anxiety doesn’t leave Angus’s face. Taako takes his hands out of his pockets and, gods damn him, kneels. “Listen, kid. Agnes. You’re not gonna have any trouble making friends. You charmed an entire moonbase full of some pretty fucked-up people. Normal people? Kids your age?” Taako whistles. “You’re gonna have no problem.”

“I hope so,” Angus murmurs, looking down at his feet. “I know it’s silly, sir, I’m just worried. I’m definitely strange for my age, and what if I can’t relate to them? I mean, I kinda helped save the world!”

“Don’t lay it on too thick, kid, you did like maybe two percent of the world saving.” Then he sighs. “Look. Kid. Everyone already loves you. Sure, they heard our stories, but they heard yours, too.”

“I know, I just - ”

The second whistles cuts him off. Taako would Silence the whole damn train if it would stop it from leaving.

Angus turns, visibly reassembling himself. “I really gotta go,” he says apologetically, and Taako almost -  _almost_  - watches him go.

“Hey, bocephus,” he says, stopping Angus just before he sets off toward Magnus, who’s frantically beckoning him over.

“Sir, I’m going to miss the train - ”

“I’m proud of you, kid,” he says, and rests a hand on Angus’s little shoulder. “You’re gonna do great.”

“Oh no,” says Angus, and there are tears welling in his eyes. “Oh no,” he says, voice even softer, and then he launches himself at Taako in a big, weepy hug.

Instinct wraps Taako’s hands around Angus’s back, patting his shoulder with a little bit of residual awkwardness that makes Angus snort tearfully. The boy hugs like an octopus, all limbs and kinda wet and very very sniffly, but Taako just presses his warmth closer to him and tries to convey all the confidence that he has in Angus to the boy himself. “You’ve got this, little man,” he says, and he  _means it_.

“Thank you,” says Angus, finally drawing back. He tries to wipe his eyes with the back of his hands, which,  _gross_ , bad habit. Sighing, Taako cleans his face with part of his shawl. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Agnes,” Taako says gruffly, pointedly ignoring the prickling in his own eyes.

The train pulls out of the station.

“Oh no,” says Angus.

“Oh shit,” Taako agrees. For a moment, both mentor and protégé stare at the train in quiet resignation. Then he grabs Angus’s hand as an idea strikes. “Ready for your first crash course in Blinking, little dude?”

Angus’s face lights up with joy. “Heck yes, sir!”

Taako waves cheerfully to the panicking Magnus and Merle, shoots them a wink, and Blinks himself and Angus onto the train.

They both pop back into existence in the central corridor of the passenger car of the Rockport Limited. Some of the children look up, and most of them gasp as they recognize - “Taako?” “from  _TV?_ ”

“Alrighty, Ango,” says one of the known saviors of this world and every world yet unknown, and kisses Angus on the forehead. “Go make tons of friends.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” Angus says, flushes from the excitement of his first Blink and grinning widely. “Bye! Love you!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taako says, and Blinks off the train, reappearing next to Magnus and Merle.

Both of them are eyeing him with exasperation. “What?” Taako snaps, dusting off his shirt. Merle rolls his eyes. Taako bumps his shoulder against Magnus’s and watches the train pull out of the station. “Had to drop off our little man in style.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Really, the sheer amount of things Lup can set on fire shouldn’t be possible. No, not even _should be_ \- by all the laws of the Astral Plane, it is _absolutely_ impossible. Whatever’s happening, it’s definitely his husband’s fault.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Nobody fucks with my friends. Except me. But that’s different.” For Taako and Ango, my boys...I love their friendship so much

It’s three in the afternoon, one of the most peaceful times of day, when Taako’s Stone of Farspeech crackles to life with  a violent burst of sound. He jumps, drops the magazine he’d been reading, and swears at it.

“Good to - talk to you - too, sir,” comes Angus’s voice, and instantly, Taako can tell something is wrong. His breathing is ragged and his voice is weak, like he’s holding the Stone far away from him. In the background sound multiple pairs of footsteps. “I may have - wanged up this case, sir, and I - uh - would really appreciate some - backup?”

“The fuck did you do?”

“Pissed off a cult,” says Angus. A couple more footfalls and a muttered curse, then “hang on,” and an awkward clinking sound, like he’s shoved the Stone into his shirt. Or his mouth. Then the distinct  _whoosh_ and  _bam!_  of a sizable Fireball hitting its target, and within seconds the jagged panting restarts.

“Kravitz!” Taako calls sharply, not bothering to cover the mouthpiece with one hand. “Get your bony ass in here!”

“Don’t be rude, sir.”

“Fuck off. Hey Krav I kinda need your scything teleportation abilities and it’s kinda an emergency.”

For the fourteenth time that week, Kravitz sighs. “Taako, you know very well that this is highly illegal - ”

“Angus is in trouble,” Taako says, waving the Stone in Kravitz’s direction.

A scythe materializes instantly in Kravitz’s hands. Taako grins wide.

“You got coordinates, bubbeleh?”

Angus rattles off a bunch of numbers, ‘cause apparently the first requirement for being the World’s Greatest Detective is having a fuckin’ GPS in your head, and before he even finishes Kravitz nods and rips open a portal into the back alleys of Neverwinter.

Without bothering to check where he’s going, Taako steps through and onto a roof.

“Fuck,” he says as the portal closes behind him. He could ping Angus again, but he doesn’t bother with the Stone and instead hollers “Ango!”

The scarlets and oranges of a fireball a couple alleyways over neatly answer his summons. Taako casts a quick Feather Fall leaps into the alleyway.

Taako’s sense of justice might be permanently janked, but five against one is really not fair, unless your last name is Burnsides and you can take down six men in an arm-wrestling contest. He drops lightly next to Angus, glaive twirling between his hands for maximum effect, and winks. “You call for help?”

He’s extremely gratified to see one of the fuckers just turn tail and flee at the sight of him. Hell yeah, that’s what havin’ an interplanar reputation does for you. Fuckin’ plus ten to intimidation rolls, especially when he drifts casually out of the sky like fantasy Mary Poppins.

A roar, an idiot charges him, and Taako burns a low-level Magic Missile on him just for shits, singing the shirt off his chest. Taako doesn’t waste words on him, and instead looks Angus over. 

He’s bleeding profusely from a cut on his forehead, his lengthening hair singed around the edges, his whipcord arms beneath Miller’s uniform shorn through in a couple of places, and worst of all -

“Did you thugs break his fuckin’ glasses?” Taako shouts, stepping in front of Angus toward the five goons approaching them. Angus steps behind Taako, still struggling to catch his breath, leaning against a brick wall. “You know much those cost, idiots? No, ‘course not, you’re fucking dumb. Fifteen thousand gold! Fifteen thousand  _fucking_  gold! You gonna pay me back, huh?”

Another one charges, followed by two of his buddies. Taako raises his glaive and fires off a couple of Scorching Rays, one-two, and the third goon slams into the wall with an ultimately satisfying  _thud_ , instantly unmoving. Two of ‘em pull up in their tracks. Okay, so. Three left, one of whom looks very unnerved. 

Taako picks the glasses off the ground, dusts off the frame, and shakes his head.

“You,” he says to Angus, turning his back carelessly on the remaining opponents, “need a new after-school hobby. Acting. Swordfighting. Fuck, kid, take up chess, you’d be really good at it.”

“I do play chess, sir,” Angus points out, holding his arm awkwardly to his chest. “And I’ve told you on, um, many occasions that I’m going to keep learning until I can finally beat Merle.”

“So forever, then.”

“I’ve gotten close a couple of times!”

Taako snorts. “Sure.” 

He’s still leaning against the wall. There’s a stir in the air as the frightened murmuring behind him ceases, and one of the goons charges, holding something sharp and pointy over his head.

“Literally, kid,  _anything_  less deadly. Something that needs less bailing at three on a Saturday?” Taako suggests, and without looking buffets the fool trying to sneak up in his blindspot with a Gust of Wind, then returns his hand to his hip.

“Aww, do you care about me, sir?”

“Don’t get your hopes up, D’jango. I care about the Glasses of Lightning Comprehension you just totalled. Fifteen thousand gold, down the drain ‘cause you can’t pick up a normal hobby like a normal kid, fuckin’  _no_ , you gotta go running around Neverwinter tryin’ to solve every mystery you come across.”

“It’s a really easy fix, sir,” Angus says, and snaps his fingers, not even bothering to channel the low-level mending spell through his wand. That familiar expression of pride lights up his face when the glasses smooth over together with a quiet  _snick_. “See?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Taako sniffs. “Don’t go destroying my gifts like that. They’re valuable. They’ve been on the face of Taako, now they’re Taako brand, baby. Oh, hey, Agnes, quick question from Taako central: you need any of these fools alive?”

“Yes please,” Angus says quickly. “Preferably all of them.”

Sighing, Taako lets drop the Disintegrate he prepared - not like he’s gonna need a seventh-level spell doing anything else today - and charges off a quick Sunburst instead. “Charred and crispy, but not dead.” Taako winks. Behind him, the remaining two assailants drop to the floor, and Taako turns to survey his handiwork.

Yep. They’ll wake up in horrible pain, skin scabbed over and bleeding through the cracks, but Taako’s remorse is zero Kelvin, he’s ice, ice baby. 

Speaking of which, Angus is trying his best not to look at the rather gory sight Taako has conjured and instead, grabbing Taako’s hand, is picking his way over the fallen bodies. He pulls out his Stone, makes a quick call to the militia, and steps into a connecting alley where he no longer has to look at the bodies.

“Well,” says Angus, nose crinkled in disgust - probably at the smell. “Case closed.”

“You sure you got the right guys?”

The look of disdain that Angus shoots him could level cities. Taako sniffs. He’s so proud. “Of course I did, sir. I am the world’s greatest detective.”

Taako can’t resists ruffling his hair, just once. “‘Course you are, kid.” In the distance, sirens sound. Angus’s backup. “Don’t think those are coming for me, but just in case,” he says, slinging an arm over Angus’s shoulder (because Angus is too tall for him to sling an arm over his skull, damn the kid), “that’s my cue to hop on out. You good here, twerp?”

“Yes, sir! Should be fine. I’ve just got to file a report after this, so just typical busywork. No more legwork for me today.”

“Good. Be more careful next time, kid. I don’t wanna work out who to regift those spectacles to.”

Angus laughs, and as he always does, pulls Taako in for a quick hug before stepping back. “Thanks for the help,” he says. “See you Sunday?”

“Uh-huh,” Taako waves noncommittally. “If you don’t get your ass to casa de Taako on time you get no dessert, and I mean it. Puppy eyes won’t work this go-around, little man.”

“Awww, Taako!”

A portal through space tears open. “None of that, put  _away_  your eyes. Good. Better.” He pulls out his Stone, calls Krav, and within seconds feels the unnatural cold of a portal home shivering along his back. “Later, Ango.” 

Taako steps through the portal with a wink just as the police cruisers pull up. The last thing Taako sees before the portal closes back with a zip is Angus, spectacles repaired, turning to the police officers with a pen already in hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Really, the sheer amount of things Lup can set on fire shouldn’t be possible. No, not even _should be_ \- by all the laws of the Astral Plane, it is _absolutely_ impossible. Whatever’s happening, it’s definitely his husband’s fault.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, the sheer amount of things Lup can set on fire shouldn’t be possible. No, not even _should be_ \- by all the laws of the Astral Plane, it is _absolutely impossible_. Whatever’s happening, it’s definitely his husband’s fault.

Lup takes every chance she can get to light stuff on fire.

Which, fine. Kravitz understands the joy of completely annihilating something every once in a while. He won’t deny that hey, sometimes he pulls out a spooky accent or a creepier version of his standard skull just to scare the shit out of some particularly-frustrating necromancers. But Lup’s penchant for fiery destruction is both frightening and constant.

It’s so constant that, when she bounces a fireball from hand-to-hand in the Astral Plane, Kravitz thinks nothing of it. It’s so constant that it’s not until later that evening, after Barry and Lup have somehow demolished an entire tray of cinnamon-chocolate cookies between the two of them, that Kravitz remembers there’s no oxygen in the Astral Plane. Why would there be? Everything in that Plane is dead, and souls have no need for breath.

Which should really make “fireballing the shit outta stuff” impossible, except he definitely recalls a flame dancing between Lup’s hands.

“Taako?” he asks later, when he and Taako have settled down on the couch, Taako’s back pressed firmly against his chest.

“Yeah-huh, m’dude?”

“Your sister, uh,” Kravitz says, “ _really_ likes to light stuff on fire.”

Taako snorts. “No shit. She’s the most powerful evocation wizard in like a hundred planar systems, my guy.”

“Taako, she lit a fire in the  _Astral Plane_.”

Taako licks his finger and flips a page of his book. “Sounds like Lup,” he says. “She fry any souls or somethin’? Got a new batch of paperwork to handle from some charred ghostly bits?”

“No,” Kravitz says, sighing. “Taako, there’s no oxygen in the Astral Plane. She shouldn’t be able to light it at all, and yet….”

“And yet,” Taako says, an odd note of satisfaction to his voice. When Kravitz looks at him, there’s a self-satisfied smirk curling up the corner of his lips.

“Taako.”

“‘Sup.”

“What do you know?”

“Lotsa shit,” says Taako. “I can conjure kickass horses outta nothing, can make gold outta anything you put in my hands. I can turn coal into gold and gold into peppermint without blinking. I do transmutation, Krav,” Taako says, closing the book and sprawling over Kravitz so that his head rests against Kravitz’s shoulder, “so turning anything into anythingis  _kinda_ my specialty.”

It takes Kravitz a couple of seconds to string together the beads Taako’s sprinkling around him with his words. When he connects them the right way, slips a tiny cord through them, he’s torn between the crazy desire to laugh and the loudest sigh of exasperation this plane has ever heard. He settles for burying his face in Taako’s shoulder. “Did you teach Lup how to  _transmute oxygen_?” he asks, voice muffled through the material of Taako’s blouse.

“Nah,” says Taako, grinning. “She doesn’t have the head for it. Doesn’t need it, ‘cause I’ve got enough stuffed up here for the both of us. You know her bracelet? The purple one?”

“The one with rhinestones.” Kravitz lifts his head and sighs pointedly. “It’s really a very flagrant violation of dress code, but she refuses to remove it.”

“‘Course she doesn’t take it off, that’s a gift from Taako, baby, that shit’s invaluable,” Taako says. “Point and click, whoosh, oxygen around your target, then you just light it up with a spark.”

“You gave her a way to click balls of condensed oxygen into existence around her targets.”

“No clicking, it’s, like, really just casting. Oh, and there’s a cool-as-shit fiddly bit too, where based on the rhinestone that’s been pressed she can alter the size of the oxygen sphere she’s blasting. One of the best damn gifts she’s ever gotten.”

“You’re behind this.” He should’ve known.

“ _We’re_ behind this,” Taako says, opening his book again, grin still plastered on his face. “Taako-and-Lup, man, that’s how we do.”

Kravitz studies his husband, trying to wrap his mind around the sheer complexity of the spell. Not only would the bracelet have to analyze different elements and turn those into oxygen, but different states of matter as well - and in the same spell, too. “That’s an impressive bit of magic, Taako,” he says sincerely.

Taako looks up from his book, and Kravitz is relieved to see no surprise on his face. A wizard as brilliant as Taako should never be surprised by compliments. “Damn straight, my man,” he says, and goes back to his book, a pleased grin curling up his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Stolen Century-era Lucretia and Taako.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hello, thanks for reading my fic. Backstory: this was my Nanowrimo project, where I wrote one of these a day and stuck 'em on tumblr. Now that November's over, I'm putting them up here, one per day until I run out. Check me out at inkedinserendipity on tumblr for this and all the rest of the stuff I've written!
> 
> Next chapter: Taako loves his magic boy very much. Angus can never, ever know this. Except, that is, when he needs to hear it.


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